Bitcoin's competition is only itself because it needs to surpass it's current state even more because it still in the stage of development and acceptance despite countries started using it as payment for e-commerce and commerce or just regular payment. Altcoins will be treated as underlings as long as btc exist.
Correct, for bitcoin there is only one point of reference and that is bitcoin itself, no other coin is at the same place, even if there are some other good coins in the market, there is no coin that has the adoption, popularity or the appreciation of the community that bitcoin has and to be honest I do not think we are going to see another coin at the top of the market anytime soon.
I always tell people, as long as bitcoin is the first, development is not going to halt, and support keeps growing with real life usage, then we will understand that altcoins have always been a distraction all along as a lot of them will end up taking the hit as the demand for bitcoin starts soaring pretty high. It would take all those things that I mentioned lacking in bitcoin to see any coin overtaking it.
Like sadlife mentioned, bitcoin is just its own competition, and every other alts are just trying to tag along. Moreover, the price of cryptocurrencies is just based on how much demand they are creating into this community and how many new people that they are attracting to invest with them. Hence, I am not seeing most other altcoins are not extending their applications up to real time scenarios, bitcoin may enjoy its dominance for hundreds of years also.